


My Paranoid Valentine

by weatherfront



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-27
Updated: 2010-07-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 04:26:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/364954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatherfront/pseuds/weatherfront
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When something mundane happens that could be misconstrued as an attack, Eames immediately shields Arthur with himself without even a second thought. Cue awkwardness.</p><p>(<a href="http://tornadobelt.livejournal.com/466.html">Fics not posted on AO3 are still on LJ.</a>)</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Paranoid Valentine

Through habit or convenience, Arthur usually dreams their first level. (Usually they only need one.) He's generally good at staying alive, always on the move, guns blazing. For his part, Eames is usually chatting up the mark in the bar of Arthur's dreams, or a casino, a lobby, furnished with leather and glass and early modern art framed in ornate gold.

So it's only during their fourth job together that Eames sees Arthur die for the first time. It's not even one of the bad ones; just an exploding rooftop, collapsing under Arthur, a cracked head and a snapped neck, a puddle of blood where he lands. Compared to some of the others, it's downright merciful.

But when Eames wakes up from the collapsing dream, his eyes are wide in horror, and he can't stop staring at Arthur.

"What's eating you?" asks Arthur, frowning.

Eames can't answer.

"Burnout?" Arthur asks Cobb, when Eames has staggered out the door.

Cobb doesn't think so, but he calls a two-month vacation on everyone and disappears so that they can't wheedle him into taking a job.

 

 

 

When they convene again, in another warehouse in another city, no one remembers two months ago. Not even Eames. They slouch in lawn chairs and discuss their misadventures, make fun of Ariadne's artist boyfriend, of Cobb's woeful battles with his preteen daughter, of Saito getting an asteroid named after himself. They make fun of everything.

Then the biryani that Yusuf has been heating up stops spinning on its tray; the microwave lets out a _ding_.

Eames launches himself from his chair and dives sideways, arms outstretched.

They watch him fall, grunting at the impact, rolling a couple times and coming to rest facedown at the foot of Arthur's chair. There is a moment of silence. Then Eames picks himself up, dusts himself off, and returns to sit on his chair.

"Would you like some biryani," offers Yusuf.

"Were you shielding us from microwave rays," asks Ariadne.

"Don't be ridiculous, Ariadne," says Arthur.

Eames looks as confused as they do.

 

 

 

Preparation for the job is going smoothly. Cobb has accepted an easy run (to get us back into shape, he says) and the mark is a man who knows half of the Coca-Cola formula. Yusuf is the only one who really feels any sort of moral conflict about the job.

"What if they make us steal the other half too?" he asks. "Then the entire recipe will be public knowledge. And anybody could make coke, do you understand what that means? _Anybody could make coke._ "

"Yusuf, will you chill out," says Ariadne from the whiteboard. "Besides, that stuff can't be good for you. My boyfriend says that it works as a contraceptive."

"Well, it does work," begins Eames, "if you use it as a substitute for h--"

He's interrupted by a distant cracking noise, somewhere outside. Ariadne yelps as he leaps up and flies across the room in an instant, knocking her whiteboard over, skidding to a stop.

"Eames," says Arthur, "what are you doing?"

What is he doing, indeed. He's standing between Arthur and the window, covering as much of it as he can, and tucking Arthur behind himself with an arm around his waist.

"That wasn't a gunshot?" asks Eames.

"That was a car backfiring," says Arthur, extricating himself.

"And it was like two blocks away," says Ariadne.

"Huh," says Eames.

 

 

 

They have a good practice run in Arthur's dream, Arthur who inserts unnecessary Penrose staircases everywhere they will fit, Arthur whose projections turn from courteous to murderous in the space of a hot minute.

"Nothing in the world as ruthless as Arthur's angry subconscious," says Yusuf.

"You added a wine cellar three stories deep," says Ariadne. "I tried to go down there, but obviously I got stuck on the staircase."

"Only I am allowed into the wine cellar," says Arthur.

They stretch their limbs and slip the needles out of their arms, stiff and languid from hours in the same lawn chairs.

Saito's phone rings.

With a roar, Eames tackles Arthur, throwing them both to the floor.

"Ugh," groans Arthur.

"Yes," says Saito, "this is he."

"What?" asks Eames, looking around, finding only Saito on his phone and the rest of the team peering down at them. "Where's the bomb?"

"Get off me," says Arthur.

Eames scrambles upright, embarrassingly aware of the line of Arthur's thighs beneath him. He extends a hand, and Arthur looks at it, then he moves to take it, then he draws back, then he shifts forward, and takes it.

Wedging the phone between his chin and shoulder, Saito applauds.

 

 

 

As always, Yusuf is working on a new compound. He has an impressive array of test tubes, Bunsen burners, and tiny bottles with eyedroppers set out in a corner.

"So you leave the central nervous system in the original dream layer," he explains, "but you take the peripheral nervous system a level deeper. Maybe not a whole level, but even still, your reflexes start operating on a different time scale."

"Superhuman speed," says Arthur. Of course this would interest him.

"Would you need a separate kick for that, when you're coming back up?" asks Cobb.

"It's mainly a conceptual thing at the moment," says Yusuf. "But I think I--"

As soon as he adds something to something else, a flaming fireball of fire whooshes out of the containers, momentarily engulfing the table.

"Eames-- no--" shouts Arthur, but Eames is already on him, pinning him to the ground.

When Yusuf coughs and wipes the ash from his goggles, the first thing he sees is Eames, frighteningly intent, with a gun in his hands aimed straight at the test tubes.

"Eames-- no--" shouts Yusuf.

It's too late. The explosion throws them all backward, and the flames shoot up toward the ceiling, blackening the walls. A piercing alarm begins to sound and the sprinklers switch on, drenching them where they stand. Or where they lie, struggling against their coworker's firm hand on their chest.

"Everybody out," yells Cobb.

Spluttering, they gather outside the building, watching smoke mushroom out of the windows. Ariadne sneezes and shudders.

"Wow, Eames," she says. "Great job."

"Is there something we need to talk about," hisses Arthur, wringing out his vest.

And his shirt is soaked through, clinging to his torso. Skin showing through whenever he shifts. Eames averts his eyes and drapes his own jacket over Arthur's shoulders, even though it's every bit as wet as anything Arthur is wearing.

"Look," starts Arthur, "I'm not your ward--"

"Ward!" shouts Eames. "We don't have wards anymore! We're not in the nineteenth century, Arthur!"

"We do so still have wards!" shouts Arthur.

"Will you just shut your gorgeous mouth and button that jacket up, darling!" shouts Eames.

Saito starts humming Love (It Seems Like Only Yesterday).

"I'm not blind, Eames!" shouts Arthur, droplets of water gliding down the vein in his neck. "I know what this is! You're just trying to--"

"Will you marry me?" blurts Eames.

Arthur makes a strangled noise in his throat.

"Okay, well, after that," says Eames, "whatever you were suspecting doesn't sound so bad, does it?"

"Nrgh," says Arthur.

"Arthur has slightly low blood pressure," says Cobb. "And he likes his showers scalding hot. Sometimes he talks a little in his sleep. His favorite color is mauve. If you make him come crying to me because you've broken his heart, I'm going to snap you like a piece of candy and feed you to my children."

"You'd do that to your own children?" gasps Yusuf.

"Dominic Cobb," shouts Arthur, "why are you GIVING ME AWAY."

"Make him happy," says Cobb, and grabs Eames' hand in a manly fashion. "You have my blessings."

"This is the worst day of my life," says Arthur.

"Pet," says Eames, winking at Arthur, "your heart will be mine."

"I wish I had never been born," says Arthur.


End file.
